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Pinemat manzanita has a fire-resistance rating, but its score does not establish it as a fire-resistant choice.
In Idaho Firewise’s field-trial database for southern Idaho and the Intermountain region, pinemat manzanita scores 4 out of 10 for fire resistance. Under CSU’s published interpretation of that scale, scores from 4 to 7 fall in the mixed band. That supports a cautious reading, without settling the plant into a clear resistant or avoid verdict.
The scale has a practical purpose: it connects fire-resistance scores to minimum planting distances. Its highest score means acceptable at ten feet, while a score of one means a distance of more than a hundred feet. Those endpoints show why the rating matters to someone choosing plants near a home. They do not establish a specific planting distance for pinemat manzanita, and its score should not be read as a percentage chance of surviving fire.
Pinemat manzanita, Arctostaphylos nevadensis, is a low-water shrub in the Ericaceae family, reaching about two feet at maturity. It is native to the northwestern and southwestern United States and hardy to USDA zone 5b. Those characteristics help establish whether it suits a garden. The fire question remains separate: its rating offers useful guidance, but stops short of a clear recommendation for fire resistance.
Form
shrub
Mature height
~2 ft
Water need
low
Rated in
southern Idaho / Intermountain
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08
The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in CA, ID, NV, OR, WA.
Native range
Current cited native range in CA, OR, WA.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 5b; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and
introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval.
Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 64978, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
Where its sources say to plant it
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 70' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
